Slovenska biografija

ZORAN ŠKRINJAR - biography

The pianist Zoran Škrinjar studied musicology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, and piano and chamber music at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana (prof. where he also graduated).

Already during the studies he made a number of performances as a solo musician, with a chamber groups and an orchestra, and was recording for radio and television.

After graduation he continued to perfect his academic knowledge at various classical piano seminars (Arbo Valdma, Eugen IndjicKonstantin Bogino, Sergej Dorensky). Since 2008 he has been enrolled in a postgraduate study of piano with Prof.Aleksej Kornjenko at Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium (Klagenfurt).

Already in his student years Zoran Š. became fascinated with jazz music and attended a number of seminars held by renowned masters and schools of the genre (Berkley college of music Boston, Reggie Workman, Kenny Barron, Barry Harrys, Benny Golson, James Williams, Horace Parlan, Bosko Petrovic).

During the years 1996-99 he attended the jazz school of Ljubljana as a blind student and successfully graduated in 1999.

During the whole time, Zoran suffered from a rare eye disease (degeneratio retinitis pigmentosa) which started to pose a difficulty towards the end of his graduate studies and eventually deteriorated into almost complete blindness. Despite the hardships Zoran Škrinjar performed several successful solo recitals, a series of concerts entitled Mozart and jazz (also in collaboration with the Ljubljana String Quartet) and orchestral concerts, featuring the orchestra of Ljubljana Music and Ballet Secondary School with conductor Vinko Šušteršič at the Slovenian Philharmonic hall; Celje String Orchestra with conductor Nenad Firšt at the Slovenian Philharmonic hall and in Narodni dom in Celje in 1991; Camerata Labacensis with conductor Franci Avsenek at Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana in 2000; FOK Prague Simphony orchestra with conductor Peter Vronsky at the Spanish hall in Prague in 2006; Academia sancti Petri with conductor Marko Hribernik at the Slovenian Philharmonic hall in 2006; The Pärnu city orchestra with conductor Juri Alperten at the PÄRNU CONCERT HALL in 2009 in Estonia; with the Prague chamber philharmonia and conductor Leoš Swarovsky in 2011 in Stavovsky divadlo (Prague Opera house)).

Zoran Škrinjar has a rich background in performing at promotional concerts at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival, he made an appearance at the international Festival Lent (Maribor-slovenija)in 2001. He regularly participated on semminars and jam sessions at international jazz festivals in Perugia, Genova,, Pärnu, Klagenfurt, Zagreb, Grožnjan (Croatia), Ljubljana, Maribor …), where he had an honour to perform with some of the world's leading masters of jazz - Wynton Marsalis, Reggie Workman, Ron Carter, Benni Golson, Bobby Durham, Ben Riley, Jorge Rossy, Martin Medeski, Dado Moroni).

In 2003 he was awarded first prize by the expert committee at the first Slovene international composer's competition Jazzon for his work The magic voice of Miss Mysterious. In 2007 he performed the author project Zoran Š. International Jazz Connection (video 1/2, video 2/2) at Cankarjev dom, within the framework of the international jazz subscription series Cankarjev jazz (the concert was also recorded for national TV).

Up until now, Zoran has released three CDs, and is guest performer on some other jazz and also pop musician’s CDs. On the first one, En' mal' smo kvartal', featuring jazz music, Zoran presents himself for the first time also as a composer, on the second, Manj znani Mozart (Less known Mozart), as a soloist with the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anton Nanut, and on the third, The magic voice of Miss Mysterious, as a composer, author of music arrangement and pianist in various ensembles.

Beside the music activity, Zoran Š. has been taking an active role in the field of spreading the culture of the blind and partially sighted in Slovenia (among other activities, as a piano teacher for blind children, as a cultural journalist). In this connection, his name appeared in the book Creativity does not know the darkness about the achievements of the blind and partially sighted in Slovenia.

In December 2005, Zoran received a special recognition award by the Association of Blind and Partially Sighted of Slovenia, in acknowledgement of cultural achievements in the field of music.

He often makes guest performances at charity concerts for various Slovene Lions clubs.